For the first time in a long time, Ro was woken nose first. She pushed herself up on her elbows, her hair falling over her face like a collapsed sail. The sound of a door slamming told her Bobbi was up, and she swung her legs out of bed, poking her head out of the door just as Bobbi was crossing the hall on her way back from the bathroom.
‘Really, though?’ she demanded, stopping in her tracks at the sight of Ro. ‘Come on! You must have heard of hair serum?’
‘Ugh,’ Ro grunted. ‘Don’t start. It’s too early.’
‘Listen, you’re a pretty girl, Ro, but you’re not getting any younger. You have to make more effort as you get older.’ Her pretty nose wrinkled as she took in Ro’s unpedicured feet.
Ro shook her head, rubbing her face violently with her hands. ‘Whatever. I’m going downstairs. If my nose is right – and it’s rarely wrong – Hump is a man with a pan this morning.’
‘I know! Right? I’m coming with you. I am so starved,’ Bobbi beamed, forgetting all about Ro’s feet and trotting behind her like a frisky pony. ‘You coming to yoga with me later?’
‘No. I told you – Melodie’s is more my kind of thing.’
‘What? You mean the napping-in-a-dark-room thing?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘Tch. That’ll never deal with your thighs.’
Ro frowned. What was wrong with her thighs?
‘Hey, listen, I say that with love. So was she that woman I saw you with last night? The one in the blue dress?’
‘That’s her,’ Ro replied proudly. ‘Did you check out her shoulders?’
‘Huh? What? No! Why would I check out . . . ?’ Bobbi, confused by the sudden swerve of the conversation, drifted off. ‘You two seemed pretty tight.’
‘She’s lovely.’
‘She’s loaded is what she is. Skin like that doesn’t come cheap, and let’s not even talk about the gold.’
‘Please don’t tell me that’s what you notice when you meet people,’ Ro grumbled.
‘Hey, don’t knock it. Where there’s money, there’s property.’ She clicked her fingers intensely. Ro guessed that meant she was concentrating and stayed quiet. They padded down the stairs together. ‘What’s the husband like? I don’t suppose you could introduce us?’
‘I only met him for the first time last night myself.’
Bobbi hummed thoughtfully. ‘Maybe I should come to the yoga class. Go through the wife.’
Ro slowed her pace. She liked Bobbi, very much, but she had the type of energy output that could charge a room, and Ro wasn’t sure she’d ever find Matt in her memories with Bobbi beside her, plotting her next career move with an intensity that could short a power station.
‘I’m not sure it’s your thing. It’s very mellow. Quite emotional.’
‘Emotional yoga? What the hell is that?’
‘Besides, Melodie doesn’t do weekend classes.’ Ro bit her lip. Melodie had explained she specifically kept her classes to weekdays so that her clients were locals and not the high-octane commuting Manhattan set, of which Bobbi was clearly a cheerleader. ‘Besides, Melodie’s going to set up dinner for us all. You can meet her husband then, schmooze him direct—’
The two girls stopped in their tracks at the kitchen door. The table had been laid with a tablecloth and cutlery, a jug of sweet peas, several glass carafes of sunrise-coloured juices, a heaped bowl of berries, Ro’s marmalade and a rack of toast. And there was indeed a man with a pan, but it wasn’t Hump.
‘My two favourite housemates!’ Greg said brightly, flipping a pancake into the air. He looked more like Gatsby than ever, dressed all in white, although Ro thought it was a shame to have missed seeing him in his pyjamas. He looked great in a suit, even better out of it, and she was wildly imagining him in pressed and piped Turnbull & Asser pyjamas, Savile Row’s finest. ‘Take a seat. Are you hungry?’
‘Famished,’ Ro said, noticing with delight a teapot warming on the trivet. He could almost be British! He’d thought of everything. She sat down and immediately helped herself to a glass of juice.
‘How about you, Bobbi?’ he asked, sliding the pancake from the pan onto a stack of them, his back turned to her.
‘I never eat before yoga.’
Ro frowned. She was sure Bobbi had said . . .
She watched the way Bobbi seemed to have closed down; her sunny Saturday mood had dissipated in a flash. Greg, it seemed, couldn’t meet her eye.
‘Um . . . should I go wake Hump?’ Ro asked, wondering if she should leave them alone.
‘He’s driving his date home,’ Greg said quickly, clearly guessing her motives.
‘Oh.’
‘So what have you got planned today?’ he asked, placing the plate of stacked pancakes on the table. ‘Please, help yourselves.’
‘Ha! Try and stop me!’ Ro beamed, spearing a pancake with her fork and spooning out a tumble of berries and crème fraiche. ‘What do you think, Bobbi? After you’ve done your yoga, shall we hit the beach? The forecast is for the high eighties today. You have no idea how exciting it is for me to actually be in a summer that’s hot and sunny, as opposed to wet and windy.’ She took the maple syrup and drizzled it over the pancake in ever-increasing circles. ‘This looks amazing,’ she said, taking an enormous bite and chewing on it with appreciation, before noticing that, alongside Bobbi’s sudden abstinence, Greg wasn’t eating either.
‘Aren’t you going to have some?’ she asked quietly, her hand over her mouth, her eyes swivelling side to side between Bobbi and Greg.
‘I’m saving myself for brunch,’ he said apologetically.
‘Brunch?’
‘Yes, it’s my summer weekend routine – brunch and tennis at the Blaizes’ place – you know, my friends in Southampton? I think I pointed them out last week.’
‘Bobbi? You’re not going to have something?’
But Bobbi just shook her head, pretending to examine her hair for split ends.
Ro chewed more slowly, cross to be made to feel awkward – even if it was inadvertent – about having an appetite.
‘You must enjoy getting time out from the office,’ Ro said, her mouth still covered by her hand, her head bobbing as she tried to swallow. ‘Hump says you work such crazy hours. Even worse than when he was a doctor doing, like, double shifts.’
‘It can get a bit much,’ Greg nodded. ‘I appreciate my time out, that’s for sure.’
‘That must be tough for your girlfriend too.’
Oh no! Classic Freud! The words were out of her mouth before she could stop herself and she glanced quickly at Bobbi – as did Greg – who had moved on to examining her nails.
He hesitated. ‘Well, I’m not really seeing anyone right now . . .’ Bobbi’s head jerked up. ‘I mean, I kinda am, but . . .’ he said quickly, before giving up with a rueful smile. ‘It’s complicated. Let’s just say the only people who care about my hours are my bosses.’ He smiled, before giving her a concerned look. ‘Hump told me you’re having a tough time, though, with your boyfriend being gone so long.’
‘Oh well,’ Ro faltered. ‘You know, every day is a day closer.’
Greg refilled her fruit juice. ‘That’s the spirit. I’m a big believer in patience. We all get what we want in the end. It’s just a waiting game, right?’
There was a rap at the screened front door.
‘Come through,’ Greg called, tipping back on his chair so as not to yell in Ro’s ear. ‘This’ll be them now.’
‘Who?’ Ro asked, aware that Bobbi had stiffened beside her as a man and a woman walked in: she, a five-foot-ten brunette with a thoroughbred ponytail, slender as a pencil and wearing a green visor of the sort people used to wear in the 1970s. He was a similar height and stocky, with hairy forearms and a smile that warranted free sunglasses.
The woman stopped in the doorway like it was the end of a catwalk, draping a tennis racquet over one shoulder and laying her other arm over her companion like he was a resting post. ‘Hey,’ she smiled.
Ro choked on a blueberry and Bobbi obliged by smacking her hard between the shoulder blades. Slightly too hard.
Greg stood up to make the introductions. ‘Ro, Bobbi, I’d like you to meet Erin and Todd. Guys, my housemates.’
Ro, who was still coughing, could only nod and smile wanly, raising a feeble hand in a wave. She felt strangely blessed, though, to be struggling to breathe, as it meant she didn’t have to rise from the table wearing just Matt’s T-shirt, which hung almost to her knees and – because she had worn it for a week and a half – came with its own atmosphere. Bobbi, on the other hand, dressed in her pretty lawn cotton camisole set, managed to convey a sense of equality with the two glamorous breakfast interlopers by merely nodding and popping a blueberry in her bored mouth.
‘Hey, have we met?’ the brunette asked Bobbi, a smile on her lips, confusion in her eyes.
‘Us?’ Bobbi’s withering tone closed down any scope for discussion about it. She shook her head. ‘No.’
‘Oh,’ the brunette said after a moment, her eyes widening with a sarcastic ‘wow’ as they met Greg’s.
‘So, you’ve got a nice day for it,’ Ro said, after a tight pause.
Todd grinned. ‘Yeah. You play?’
‘Used to. Not as much as I’d like. Time.’ She rolled her eyes.
‘Talking of which,’ Todd said, pointing his racquet at Greg, ‘I just booked us in for a round at the Maidstone at two this afternoon.’
Greg looked pleased. ‘On a Saturday? How d’you work that?’
Todd tapped the side of his nose with a finger and winked. ‘So, you ready? The others are in the car.’
‘You don’t mind, do you?’ Greg hesitated, seeing Ro’s plate was only half finished.
‘No, no,’ she pooh-poohed, desperate for them to leave. ‘You must go. You’ve set us up beautifully for breakfast. Thank you so much.’
‘The pleasure was all mine,’ Greg said, grabbing a large sports bag from beside the fridge.
Bobbi watched them go, merely shrugging her eyebrows as a goodbye gesture. She waited for the front door to fall on the latch, then leaned so far forward on the table that her hair dipped in the maple syrup. ‘Oh my God, they are so fake. That guy is such a phoney,’ she hissed.
‘They seemed very nice to me,’ Ro said, pushing away her pancake, which was now cold, and reaching for the toast instead. She wasn’t entirely sure which guy Bobbi was referring to – Greg or Todd? But there was no doubt something was going on between the housemates. They’d barely looked at each other since that first night.
Ro’s eyes flitted over to her as she buttered the toast. ‘Listen, is anything the matter between you and Greg?’
‘What? No. Why would you say that?’
Ro shrugged. ‘You just seem a little . . . jumpy around each other, that’s all. It’s a shame because you seemed to get on like a house on fire last Saturday night.’ There was a silence and Ro looked up. ‘What?’
‘Did your hair just move?’
‘What?’ Ro laughed.
‘I’m serious. I swear . . . I swear it just moved of its own accord. Have you checked it recently for hibernating animals?’
Ro couldn’t help but grin. They were back to the serum conversation again. Diversion as distraction? Oh well, she knew intimacy couldn’t be forced. ‘Personally, I like the dormice. They create little hotspots on my head.’
‘Ew, gross!’ Bobbi cried, almost gagging, making Ro laugh harder as she handed her a plate and fork, and pushed over the pancakes.
Bobbi took one with a conspiratorial look and began eating with almost rabid hunger – safe in the knowledge that Greg wasn’t there to see.
Ro was sitting on the bed, trying to get a flimsy green travel comb through her hair, when her mobile rang. She lunged for it, ever hopeful, her face falling as she saw the caller ID.
‘Oh, hi, Florence,’ she said, trying to mask her disappointment. ‘How are you?’
She hoped Florence wasn’t ringing for an update on the campaign. She had nothing to show her but 500 images of sand dunes taken in different lights and with different birds on them. No images, no ideas. If she didn’t hit on something soon, she was going to have to pay back the advance and seriously consider buying a flight home with what money she had left.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you so early on a Saturday, but I’ve just had a call, and, well, I wondered whether you might be able to help.’
Ro’s hands dropped to her sides as she heard the fluster in the older woman’s usually calm voice. ‘Of course. Anything. What’s up?’
‘It’s my great friend Nan Beckett. Her daughter’s getting married today, but she’s just had a call from a hospital in Boston. Their photographer was involved in an auto accident on his way down here early this morning. He’s got a broken leg and is scheduled for surgery later today. I know it’s a terrible imposition, but I didn’t know who else to—’
‘Of course I’ll do it,’ Ro interrupted, immediately walking over to her wardrobe and pulling out her trusty black work suit. She sniffed it and decided it could cope with one more outing, so long as she walked through a cloud of Febreze before she left. ‘They can’t possibly go ahead without a photographer. Where is it, and when?’
‘Oh, you are a diamond! The service is at St Luke’s Episcopal, just next to the windmill. The reception’s at the Maidstone afterwards. Wait till I tell them – they’ll be so thrilled.’
‘Do they want some prep shots of the bride too? Shall I go to the house beforehand?’ she asked, clamping the phone between her shoulder and ear as she stepped into her trousers.
Downstairs, she heard the front door slam – could no one ever shut a door quietly in this house? – and hoped it was Hump back from his chivalrous errand.
‘Oh, would you? They’re at West Meadows, Further Lane. The service is at twelve thirty, so they’re beginning to get ready now, but they’re in a terrible panic. Poor Lauren, it’s the last thing she should be worrying about on her wedding day.’
‘Well, tell her to wait for me. I’m on my way now.’
‘Perfect. I’ll see you there myself shortly.’
Ro hastily half buttoned up her white shirt and grabbed her jacket from the bed as she flung open the bedroom door and found Hump trudging wearily up the stairs. He was pale beneath his tan, and from the looks of things, hadn’t slept last night.
‘Hump! Thank God it’s you. I need to ask a massive favour,’ she said, wriggling into the jacket and just about popping the buttons off her shirt.
Hump recoiled, particularly at the stress she placed on ‘massive’. ‘I was just going back to bed.’
‘No! Not yet. Please can you drop me at a house on Further Lane – via the studio?’ She stuffed her foot into one of her Converse trainers and began tying the laces. ‘I can’t get over there with all my kit on the bike. Please. Pretty please.’ She placed her hands in a prayer position and bent her knees for extra supplication. She figured she could tell him the rest when they got there.
A telltale ringing started up on the chest of drawers behind her.
What? No!
Hump eyed his bed from the stairs and sighed. He turned on the spot and started traipsing downstairs again. ‘Fine. But let’s go now. I’m so tired I’m seeing double.’
‘OK,’ Ro said slowly, her eyes and attention diverted to the laptop on the chest of drawers that had ‘Matt calling’ emblazoned in green letters across the screen. No! ‘I’ll just—’
She rammed her foot into the other trainer and hobbled across the room, tripping on the laces and falling heavily onto the wooden floor.
‘Jeez! Why are you so noisy? What are you doing up there?’ Hump shouted upstairs. ‘Come on, Ro. Now!’
She heard the scrape of his keys being lifted off the hall table and looked up at the screen. A gurgle of distress came from her throat – she had an absent boyfriend, panicking bride and exhausted sexed-out housemate all needing her now.
Why now? Why couldn’t he have called even three minutes earlier? She got up and lunged for the laptop. If she could just say ‘hi’ . . . She caught sight of herself in the mirror as she passed and stopped dead – the green comb was still stuck in her hair. ‘Bloody hell!’ she spluttered, trying to tug it out.
‘Big Foot!’ Hump shouted, as it came free, along with several hundred of her hairs. She rubbed her head, swearing under her breath. ‘I mean it! I need to sleep!’
‘Urgh, I’m coming! I’m coming!’ she shouted, looking at the screen, out of reach and out of time. She ran back across the room and closed the door behind her. With a slam.
Eight hours later, she found Hump slumped on the balustrade outside the bar.
‘I owe you big time,’ she said, patting his shoulder gratefully.
‘Yes, you do.’
‘Here. Drink this.’
Hump stared back at her with the look of the half-dead as he massaged a foot. ‘Thanks, but I never drink when I’m working. There’s a direct correlation between a blurry head and blurry pictures,’ he said piously, echoing the words she spoke when she first met him.
‘Drink it. That’s an order from your boss.’
He took the bottle of beer and downed it in one, earning himself a foamy moustache and smacking his lips in appreciation. ‘Any more orders you’d like me to follow?’ he asked, hopeful there were more where that had come from.
‘Sadly not. There’s still the dancing to get through,’ she said, patting his arm. ‘We’ve got an hour off, though.’
The wedding breakfast was in full swing and she was grateful for the break. She leaned against him as they looked out at the ocean. The beach was all but empty now, just a few remaining dog-walkers and joggers catching the last of the light. At the foot of the dunes, a group of university students were digging a trench in the sand and lighting a fire, its grey smoke finger poking into the perfect uniformity of the violet sky.
‘What are they doing?’ she asked, watching a group of the girls staggering back up the beach, carrying several buckets between them.
‘Clam bake.’
Ro tutted at him, resting her head on his shoulder. She was exhausted too, although rather more used to being on her feet for twelve hours at a stretch than her poor, shattered housemate, who was too big-hearted to turn down requests for favours. ‘That’s one of those obscure American things that English people hear about but have no idea whatsoever what they actually are – like sophomores and freshmen and sororities. I mean, we did create the language. We should get jurisdiction on these things, you know.’
Hump chuckled, the vibrations ticklish against her cheek. ‘We can have one tomorrow night if you like – before Bobbi and Greg go back.’
‘Hmm.’ She wasn’t sure that was a great idea. Bobbi seemed intent on spiting Greg at any opportunity – and that was assuming Greg could be surgically separated from the Southampton crew, anyway.
She shifted position, looking down at the video camera in Hump’s hands. ‘So how much footage did you get?’ she asked, pressing some buttons. ‘Oh, seven and a half hours. Pretty good. We should definitely be able to put something together from that.’ She squeezed his arm. ‘You have no idea how grateful I am to you for helping me out. I know you’re exhausted.’
‘Don’t worry – this is gonna cost you. It’s breakfast in bed for me for a week.’
‘Deal.’
A curl of laughter behind them made her turn and she looked into the honeyed glow of the clubhouse bar, where the regular guests were every bit as groomed as the wedding party.
‘It’s nice here,’ she murmured.
‘Nice?’ Hump looked down at her, thoroughly bemused.
‘What? What’s wrong with that?’
‘The Maidstone is one of the most exclusive clubs on the East Coast of America. It’s so exclusive you have to be a member just to access the website.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged, nonplussed. ‘And how do you become a member?’
Hump paused for a moment. ‘You know that saying “If you have to ask the price, you can’t afford it”? Well, it’s like that for membership here: if you have to ask how to join, you’re not in the club.’
‘Right,’ Ro said, slightly lost. ‘So are you a member, then?’
‘My family is. I don’t really bother with it. Not my scene,’ he said, kicking up a foot to show off his signature yellow flip-flops, which had only been permitted here today as a one-off after Florence had hurriedly explained the pre-wedding crisis to the general manager.
‘Mmm, me neither,’ she said, slumping against him again, worn out.
He held up her hand, noticing for the first time it was empty. ‘Haven’t you had a drink?’
‘No. I never drink when I’m working,’ she replied automatically.
‘Screw that,’ Hump said, pushing himself to standing. ‘I don’t think you realize how hyperactive you are with that camera to your face. You’re like a boxer sparring, all that fancy footwork and dodging and ducking. Gin and tonic coming up.’
She sighed gratefully. Maybe a drink would pep her up. She was still dejected to have missed Matt’s call earlier. Of all the crummy luck . . . ‘That would be great.’
He walked slowly inside and she lifted her camera, scrolling through the images on the display – she’d taken over 800 shots today.
She was at the 250 mark when a creak on the boards made her look up. The camera dropped from her hands and swung round her neck on just the strap.
‘Are you kidding? First the hardware store, then my studio – twice – last night and now here? You’re following me!’
Long Story stopped walking – seemingly as surprised as she – and turned slightly to show her the golf bag on his shoulder. ‘Actually, I was just coming in for a drink . . .’ An expression flitted over his face, as though he was going to say something but then thought better of it. ‘But I can leave if you’d prefer.’
Ro narrowed her eyes suspiciously – why was he deferring to her? He hadn’t left the party last night, and he’d only left the studio after she threw him out. Why now? And then it came to her – it was this place, with its snooty rules. He was probably worried she was going to make a scene; you doubtless got thrown out of clubs like this for things like that. She looked into the clubhouse. Hump was standing by the bar, chatting to a group of people dressed for cocktails and seemingly oblivious to how incongruous he looked among them in his jeans and surf T-shirt. At least he was in earshot.
‘It’s fine,’ she mumbled. ‘I don’t care whether you’re in there or not.’
She looked back down at the camera, trying to appear busy, but his feet – in her peripheral vision – didn’t move.
After a few moments, she looked up again. ‘What?’ she demanded, disconcerted to find his eyes steady upon her.
‘I just thought that seeing as we appear to keep bumping into each other, perhaps we should try to clear the air properly, once and for all.’
‘No.’ She looked down again.
‘No?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘So you want to keep up this hostility every time we meet?’
‘Trust me, we’re never going to meet again,’ she quipped, borrowing one of Bobbi’s sarcastic smiles.
He shifted position, heaving the bag back on his shoulder. ‘There must be something I can do to make amends.’
‘A long walk off a short jetty would be a start—’ She stopped. She realized there was something. But . . . no, no. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of being able to make it up to her. After the humiliation on the beach, she was rather enjoying watching him wriggle on her hook now.
‘What?’ he asked, reading her expression.
‘Nothing.’
‘No, I saw – your face. You thought of something. Tell me.’
She stared back at him, but it was hard to keep her eyes on his, to keep the aggression in her gaze. Standing here, so polite and acquiescent, it was hard to believe he was the same man who’d manhandled her so brusquely. And the idea that had flitted through her mind – it was a good one. ‘Fine. There is something you could do.’
‘OK.’ He planted his feet squarely like he expected her to start wrestling him.
‘The images you made me delete on the beach.’
It was his turn to look wary. ‘Yes.’
‘I want your permission to use them.’
‘What? But how? You deleted them. I watched you.’
‘Yes, I did delete them, but from the camera, not the memory. I retrieved them when I returned to my studio.’
‘You . . .’ He stared at her for a long moment and a tremor of anger and confusion pulsed through his voice. ‘Listen, I want you to know that I am sincere when I say I want to make things up to you, but I cannot let you use those images.’ His voice had changed, taking on that thin, strained quality she remembered from the beach.
‘They’d be for a good cause, a local cause,’ she said quickly. ‘And besides, no one can or would be able to tell that they’re your children in the photo, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Ten days’ immersion in the extraordinary wealth that was seemingly everywhere out here had shown her that with wealth came paranoia; Bobbi had told her some of the kids at the summer camps had security guards. ‘You saw the pictures yourself. They could be cardboard cut-outs for all anyone knows.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t. I wish I could help you on this, but—’
‘You owe me. What you did overstepped the mark and we both know it.’ She crossed her arms and a defiant look came into her eyes. ‘How do you think the management here would view the incident if I told them one of their members had behaved in that way?’
His reaction wasn’t what she expected. He looked like he was almost going to laugh. ‘So you’re going to blackmail me?’
‘No. I’m simply asking you to consider my request. I’m asking you to come down to my studio and look at the picture properly for yourself. Then, if you still don’t want me to use it, I’ll . . . I’ll respect your wishes.’
He was silent. ‘It doesn’t look like I’ve got much choice,’ he said finally.
‘Ten o’clock tomorrow suit you?’ she asked briskly, determined not to feel badly. She’d never blackmailed someone before.
‘Eight thirty. I have plans.’
‘Fine. Eight thirty.’ Damn, that was an early start for a Sunday – especially after a long day like this had been.
He turned on his heel, walking away from her, away from the clubhouse.
‘Hey,’ she called after him. ‘Aren’t you going to have that drink?’
When he looked back at her, his eyes were cold. ‘No.’